Terms of Our Desire

by Avery Lang

Heat 3 / 5Novella · 12 chapters29,461 words2h 8m read~3h 16m listen

Before the city wakes, in the marble-cold kitchen of a Hamptons compound still humming with last night’s gala, Esme Ives finds a contract she did not put there. One clause is circled twice in dark ink: no party shall be compelled to physical intimacy. Then Zephyr Brier walks in, immaculate and grim, with news that will detonate both their lives before breakfast.

A leaked video. A furious donor family. A conservative board with a chillingly elegant solution: Esme and Zephyr are already secretly engaged — proof positive that Manhattan’s most ruthless CEO does not exploit the women who work for him. All they have to do is sign the crooked page between them, smile for the cameras, and keep the merger alive. Esme’s three-month trial position ends at dawn if she refuses.

She has signed under pressure before. She knows exactly what it costs the person who cannot afford to say no.

BillionaireBoss EmployeeFake DatingMarriage Of Convenience